Giving away music

[Jedeye]

Is this a good route to go down? I have given away remixes in the past and had quite a bit of exposure though it and even had some remix work as a direct result. This time though i am thinking of giving away an EP via my Soundcloud. I have around 1200 followers so would send it them plus groups, Youtube, Facebook etc. I have sent stuff to labels recently but had no reply's or listens so i'm thinking why not just get it properly mastered and throw it out there for people to hear instead of sitting on it?

[wub]

IMO, do it. Fanu (Finnish drum & bass producer) gives away a load of his material and I've ended up buying more of his stuff from his Bandcamp page as a result.

[123kidd]

Lots of the new generation of producers are doing this (eg Zeds Dead). Most of them just want their stuff heard. After all, if you think about it, its still is a form of advertising for the artist.

[NinjaEdit]

One against is that record labels don't like when they promote a release, just to have people download the artist's free material, which may cause problems if you were going to attempt to release things for money later.

[+3]

I never believed in this, but I’ve changed my tune, and in the future will be giving away albums (if I start a new production name).

It seems to be the thing up & comers are doing now, and it works. There are just so many musicians out here trying to be heard you basically do have to give your stuff away at first now. Once you have an audience you can charge.

I noticed a lot of artists breaking out like this, for instance TheWeeknd, ASAP Rocky, Iggy Azaela, etc etc… they all gave away albums--good albums too--and now that they have thousands of fans, they can do shows & charge for future music as well.

Not sure how it works for underground dance music, as poster above said, labels want exclusive material. But even getting the attention of a label these days seems hard with so many people producing one may still want to build a fanbase first?

[NinjaEdit]

You can also do the "pay what you want" thing on Bandcamp etc.

[SMOR3S]

Recognition is always better than money imo, so if you want to drop a free EP, do it... Rusko's new EP is free, but you can donate to buy it, so you get the best of both worlds if you want...

[fragments]

One against is that record labels don't like when they promote a release, just to have people download the artist's free material, which may cause problems if you were going to attempt to release things for money later.

Isn't this only a problem if the label is "officially releasing" the tune at a cost to the fan then the artist turns around and gives it away? If you are under no label obligations how is it going to be a future problem? If they tunes are good and you build a fan base I think people will pay later on.

[NinjaEdit]

I'm referring to a label owner in this thread.

[Fbac]

Althou i agree with the above sentiments there is an idea amongst the app community, that once you have decided to give away your content (apps, music) for free to your audience they then become reluctant to pay when you do add a price later on.. Where as studies had shown that if people paid as little as 0.1p they were less bothered by increases in the price.

(this was in relation to App's that i read in a magazine over a year ago.)

[legend4ry]

I have given away more than I have released commercially.. Even my album!

What is your justification for not giving it out free, thats the question? To earn 15$ in 6 months from royalties?

[Aufnahmewindwuschel]

Althou i agree with the above sentiments there is an idea amongst the app community, that once you have decided to give away your content (apps, music) for free to your audience they then become reluctant to pay when you do add a price later on.. Where as studies had shown that if people paid as little as 0.1p they were less bothered by increases in the price.

(this was in relation to App's that i read in a magazine over a year ago.)

fuck people!
people would do nearly everything. look at all those hipsters,christians,metalheads,atheists,skaters etc its basicaly assholes telling people what to do. normal people are like fishes in the middle of a swarm

[bRRRz]

i give my stuff out for free, why not? i'm not even remotely professional let alone confident enough in my tunes that i'd attempt to sell them.

[Fbac]

Pay what you want seems to be the best move at the moment, with a few free tracks thrown in to grow your fan-base.

I know audiophiles who wouldnt play lower quality files if they could get a higher quality one, you could charge for the higher quality one but then i just think they will look for other music and this would then reduce the chances of your music being played out.

Someone should make a meme "Finnaly gets to the point he can sell his music" "everyone releases there music for free"

Instead of just giving it out for free you could make some marketing scam and say "its only free for this month" and so on. (just dont be disapointed if no one but your nan downloads it)

The only question is does giving it away for free de-value your music. In this day and age I doubt it does.
There was a recent article on EDM looking at how people like deadmaus were required to perform and gig to keep an income in that they then had less time to spend on actually producing music and was thus a result in a large amount of substandard tracks being released.

So musicians who want to make a living need to tour. But here's where the Catch-22 kicks in.

""""
For producer/DJs to get consistent bookings, they need to keep up a steady flood of new productions in order to keep their name circulating in the public. So they end up releasing tons of mediocre shit, just as talented producers deliver sub-standard DJ sets. And, since they're gigging every weekend and then recovering from jetlag and hangovers from Monday through Wednesday, there's precious little time to actually sit down in the studio and get real work done. Making good music takes time, and time is an increasingly scarce resource for touring DJs and live performers."""

quoted from http://www.spin.com/blogs/dance-musics- ... -streaming

[mthrfnk]

I like the "Pay with a Tweet" model, its a app you can use that forces people to tweet or facebook a generic message and link to your download before providing access to the free download. Rusko did it with his newest EP iirc.

I think it's quite a good idea tbh, people still get the stuff for free but they have to promote you first.

[hasezwei]

I like the "Pay with a Tweet" model, its a app you can use that forces people to tweet or facebook a generic message and link to your download before providing access to the free download. Rusko did it with his newest EP iirc.

I think it's quite a good idea tbh, people still get the stuff for free but they have to promote you first.

...
i dont get this at all
what do you earn from that? internet fame?
i know some people might think attention is the new dollar but that only works with advertising cause implanting non-piratable goods into my subconscious is gonna make me 0,0473% more likely to buy them. but music? really? this is ridiculous.

What is your justification for not giving it out free, thats the question? To earn 15$ in 6 months from royalties?

ouch. hit the nail on the head though.

[NinjaEdit]

You could still make that in public performance royalties anyway.

[mthrfnk]

I like the "Pay with a Tweet" model, its a app you can use that forces people to tweet or facebook a generic message and link to your download before providing access to the free download. Rusko did it with his newest EP iirc.

I think it's quite a good idea tbh, people still get the stuff for free but they have to promote you first.

...
i dont get this at all
what do you earn from that? internet fame?
i know some people might think attention is the new dollar but that only works with advertising cause implanting non-piratable goods into my subconscious is gonna make me 0,0473% more likely to buy them. but music? really? this is ridiculous.

What don't you get, it's got nothing to do with "internet fame" at all.
It's just a good way to get people to share and promote your stuff with others... in return they get your stuff for free.

[wub]

I'm going to use the example of Fanu again;

http://fanu.bandcamp.com/

That's his Bandcamp page, full of free stuff mixed in with stuff you pay for. I downloaded the free stuff (WITHOUT having to click like/follow/Tweet/whatever) and liked it so much that I ended up buying a copy of his double album on CD;

http://fanu.bandcamp.com/album/daylightless

€4 for a double CD? Fucking BARGAIN mate if you ask me. Anyway, the point is that even without having to force me to click something to get the free stuff, the fact the stuff was free was enough to get me enticed.

And I've done some promotion for him here by mentioning him in this thread anyway

[hasezwei]

I like the "Pay with a Tweet" model, its a app you can use that forces people to tweet or facebook a generic message and link to your download before providing access to the free download. Rusko did it with his newest EP iirc.

I think it's quite a good idea tbh, people still get the stuff for free but they have to promote you first.

...
i dont get this at all
what do you earn from that? internet fame?
i know some people might think attention is the new dollar but that only works with advertising cause implanting non-piratable goods into my subconscious is gonna make me 0,0473% more likely to buy them. but music? really? this is ridiculous.

What don't you get, it's got nothing to do with "internet fame" at all.
It's just a good way to get people to share and promote your stuff with others... in return they get your stuff for free.

its not sharing and promoting, it's spam. read wub's post, that's how its done.
and i still dont know what you actually gain from all that forced promo